Friday, 23 December 2011

Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review - a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal

With the death of Kim Jong-il, leader of one of the world’s most secretive states, the Guardian has gathered information about life in North Korea. Figures detailed in the blog are on population, corruption, capital punishment, military strength, nuclear capacity, poverty, peace, emissions and football.

The Economist is showcasing a beefed-up version of their Big Mac Index as part of their Daily Chart Advent Calendar. The index finds that based on market exchange rates, a burger is 44% cheaper in China than in America.

Marcelo Giugale, the World Bank’s Director of Economic Policy and Poverty Reduction Programs for Africa, looks back over the last thirty years and questions whether the free movement of people, money goods and ideas has helped or hindered gender equality.

Wikigender needs an article on gender equality and globalisation – please login and start the article

In the Spotlight: Season’s Greetings

Wishing you all the very best for the festive season and we look forward to another year of progress with you in 2012 – Wikiprogress Team

Tuesday, 20 December 2011

I just spotted this article on the Wikimedia Blog. It is all about students in cooperation with their teachers and Universities, writing their final term papers on Wikipedia. We think this is fabulous. So fabulous that Wikigender and Wikiprogress also have this program. This year we teamed up with Sciences Po in Paris, students at the American University in Paris and the CIDE in Mexico to encourage students to volunteer to write on gender equality. Next year we look forward to working with Universities in Thailand and India. See the Wikigender University Portal here.

Wikimedia University student Karl says in the Wikimedia blog, "“I still maintain that this Wikipedia project made a world of difference in
being able to write well, and unlike a term paper, which is thrown
away at the end of the semester, all the work that goes into a Wikipedia article
continues to help people even after the class ends".

Wikigender took this one step further and made a selection of articles and published it via Pedia Press. This book contains articles on gender equality and education, migration and peace and security. You can buy the book here (who wouldn't want that in their stocking??) or download a printed copy. For more information see the Wikigender University Portal.

Please let us know if you, your class or University would like to join this project at contact@wikigender.org.

Thursday, 15 December 2011

Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review - a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal .

On progress in AustraliaAustralia's national statistician prefers a "dashboard" approach to well-being (15.12.2011)
Imogen Wall from the Measures of Australia’s Progress team at the Australian Bureau of Statistics uses a dashboard metaphor to describe the importance of using a range of indicators for measuring well-being, “It is important, when driving, to have information not only about speed and distance travelled, but also about engine temperature and remaining petrol.”
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on Measures of Australia’s Progress

On gender equalityAn African Gender Statistics Group in the offing (13.12.2011)
In an address to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Ghana Statistical Service, Dr Grace Bediako announced plans for an African Gender Statistics Group that aims to mainstream gender into national and international statistics programmes.
See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on Gender Statistics

On the environmentTime for a Green Index (13.12.2011)
Professor of Environmental Science Chuluun Togtokh argues that the UNDP Human Development Index ‘idolises’ some of the most environmentally damaging societies and suggests replacing the index with one that considers green technologies. He has found that per capita carbon emissions are a simple and quantifiable indicator, which is both strongly and positively, correlated with income.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on green growth

On employmentJobs, or more precisely, the lack of jobs is now a global issue (World Bank 26.09.2011)
The World Bank blogs on a pressing global issue: unemployment. It is more than the 205 million people worldwide who are unemployed, it is that in today’s post-crisis world policy makers and practitioners do not know how to create jobs, let alone good jobs.See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on unemployment rates

In the spotlight
TIME 2011 Person of the Year: The Protester: Why I Protest: Ahmed Harara of Egypt (TIME 14.12.2011)In announcing the 2011 person of the year as The Protester, TIME has profiled a series of protesters involved the the various uprisings of 2011. Ahmed Harara was protesting in Tahrir Square in January when he lost his eye to a rubber bullet; ten months later he returned to Tahrir Square only to lose the other eye in the same way.See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on the Arab Spring

In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page .

Monday, 12 December 2011

The United Nations Population Division estimates that the world's population reached 7 billion around October 31, 2011. This milestone has an important impact on the worldwide economic and social equilibrium. Gender equality represents a major factor allowing countries to bear the challenges and to benefit from the opportunities of demographic dynamics.

The recent birth of the 7th billion human being has been registered with mixed feelings all over the world. The exponential population growth that could have been observed over the last 50 years as well as the UN projections for the future global population size are perceived as quite frightening in most countries. Indeed, the actual population size and the future population growth represent enormous challenges for countries of all development stages.

In developing countries, and particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, a first important challenge is to provide an adequate agricultural organization to avoid famine, to provide clean water and to protect the environment. Improving the access to health and education is another major challenge. This is where gender equality comes into play. Especially for girls and young women, access to family planning, to contraception, to education and to the formal labour market is crucial not only for improving their own living conditions, but also in terms of demographic dynamics. Fertility and child mortality can be significantly reduced by fostering women’s economic empowerment and by containing patriarchal social norms (inheritance laws, genital mutilation, limited freedom of movement etc…). In addition, an improved access to education for girls and boys allows developing countries to exploit their enormous growth potential that comes along with the high proportion of young people at working age (demographic bonus).

In emerging countries, rapid industrialization and urbanization represent a major development challenge as these phenomena risk coming along with environmental damage, slum formation, unemployment, loose family networks, drug abuse and youth criminality. In this context, improving women’s access to the formal labour market as well as to health care and education is particularly important, as investments in these areas are likely to lead to later marriages, less teenage pregnancies and more stable family structures. This helps accelerating the trend to smaller families and boosts investments in the education and health of children. Providing economic and educational opportunities for women thus leads to a win-win situation for all of society.

In developed countries, low fertility and high life expectancy represent the major demographic challenges. Population ageing certainly is a worldwide phenomenon, but implies a particular problem for developed countries, as the current low fertility rates make it difficult to finance pay-as-you go pension systems in the next future. Providing women with possibilities to combine work and family life has been identified as an important factor to enable parents to realize their fertility intentions. Moreover, providing women with an independent income, which allows them to make adequate social security contributions and private savings, can be seen as the best instrument to battle old-age poverty in developed countries (which concerns mainly women).

Hence, women's access to decent jobs with income and career perspectives emerges as a key factor to tackle the challenges of demographic dynamics. This holds for developed countries as much as for emerging and developing countries.

Friday, 9 December 2011

Week in review 09.12.2011
Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review - a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal.

Defending the motion in this week’s Economist debate is Linda Basch (President of National Council for Research on Women), who argues work is right for families, communities, the economy and women. Against this motion is Christina Hoff Summers (American Enterprise Institute), who believes women should not have an assigned place and questions what is wrong with the 5 million American women who are full-time mothers.

On growth in IndiaPutting Growth in its Place (Outlook, November)
Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze co-author this essay on growth and development in India stressing that growth should be a means to development but not an end in itself. India is a unique case, even after 20 years of growth it is still among the world’s poorest nations.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on progress in India

Wednesday, 7 December 2011

Providing social protection to the informal middle classes will foster social cohesion, and doesn’t cost the earth.

As citizens across the globe demand new economic models, the OECD’s newly released Perspectives on Global Development 2012 puts social cohesion on the table as a broader social development objective. Social cohesion compounds inclusiveness, equal opportunity and a sense of belonging to society, of shared destinies. Strong growth in a large part of the developing world has transformed the ways development challenges can be addressed.

The final declaration of the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness held in Busan last week reminds us that poverty and inequality remain a central challenge in global development. The OECD’s Perspectives on Global Development 2012 find that 83 countries more than doubled OECD per capita growth rates over the past decade. You would be right to think that faster than 1.8% growth is hardly impressive; but in fact 49 countries grew at more than 3.75%. In the 1990s, only 12 countries managed that.

How growth has changed the picture

First, the poor no longer live mostly in poor countries. Research by Andy Sumner, at the Institute for Development Studies , finds that 70% of the world’s poor live in middle income countries. Two decades ago, 93% of the poor lived in Low Income Countries. This means that most of the poor live in countries where per capita incomes are above USD 2.75 a day, and more in purchasing parity terms. In other words, more countries can use redistributive instruments – from taxes to transfers to health provision – to eradicate poverty. Indeed, countries such as India or China have up-scaled social protection interventions in recent years.

Second, millions have been lifted out of poverty as average incomes have increased and emerged as a new – but vulnerable ­– middle class. As a result, half of the 2bn-strong global middle class live in emerging economies. But make no mistake, this middle class is unlike Western stereotypes of a couple with two children, a dog and one or two cars. The emerging middle classes are vulnerable: many remain only just above the poverty line and do not have a stock of capital that would allow them to buffer major shocks such as illness nor to whether the changes in fortunes which come with old age. In Latin America, less than 10% of households have mortgage loans, and less than half of them are middle-class. Many in the emerging middle classes work informally. And yet, not being poor, they have the capacity to save and contribute to social insurance. Social protection plays a key role in buttressing their middle class status and preventing them from slipping back into poverty.

The past ten years have seen a true “quiet revolution”in social protection in the developing world. The rapid introduction of means-tested cash benefits has greatly increased the scale of social protection. South Africa’s Child Support Grant, introduced in 1998 covered 7.7 million children by 2008, China’s Minimum Living Subsidy Scheme (DiBao) was introduced in 1997 and reached 57 million households by 2007. The very popular conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes in Mexico (Oportunidades) and Brazil (Bolsa Família) reach respectively 5 and 12.5 million households or about a quarter of the population in each country. The beauty of this quantum leap is that it has been made using home-grown instruments, tried and tested across developing countries. Often these new programmes coexist with contribution-based social security systems that cover formal employees.

The “missing middle”: a challenge for social cohesion

Put together, contribution-based social security and means-tested social protection for the poor leave a “missing middle” in social protection coverage. Indeed, research at the OECD Development Centre shows that the majority of middle-class workers in emerging economies such as Brazil or Mexico are not formal employees. Contributory pensions are open to independent workers and informal employees – those without contracts – but in practice only a minority participate in them. In the case of Brazil only 15% of the self-employed and 9% of informal employees in the middle income quintiles contribute to pensions systems.

Providing adequate instruments for the informal middle classes to insure or manage risk matters for social cohesion. First because today’s vulnerable middle class can become tomorrow’s poor. Many in the emerging middle classes lie close to the poverty line and can fall back in downturns. Second, it is a matter of horizontal equity. Social protection is a form of institutionalized solidarity: excluding certain categories from social protection deprives them of risk management instruments which are usually not available in the private market. Moreover, it runs the risk of alienating that segment of society. Finally, the middle classes have an important role to play in shaping the politics of poverty reduction. How likely are the informal middle classes to side with the poor on redistribution issues if they do not partake in the system that protects the poor?

Extending protection: more than one way forward

Social protection can be extended to cover the informal middle classes in several ways. Unbundling health, pensions and the other functions of social security helps, because they can be priced and provided separately. Contributory pensions and Unemployment Insurance Savings Accounts as implemented in Chile are examples of such unbundling. Certain instruments, like UISAs (compulsory savings accounts from which withdrawals are made during unemployment spells) can be extended to informal workers. Since they pool little risk across workers, they do not entail cross-subsidies or generate incentives to stay out of formal work. Subsidising contributions to the social security system is also possible – for example by governments’ matching deposits into retirement accounts. Matching-defined contribution pensions following that model are being implemented in Mexico, Colombia and Peru. Universal entitlements are also used today across the developing world, especially for basic healthcare and pension income. In all cases, the key is to break the dichotomy between a social protection system for formal workers and one – or none – for informal workers. Such duality reinforces the segmentation between labour markets and contributes to deepen the fault line between formal and informal workers.

At stake is building a social protection system that not only alleviates poverty, but empowers citizens to build up and protect human capital and to participate in networks of organised solidarity. The past decade saw the emergence of a number of innovative instruments in social protection, born and bred in the South. Making inclusive systems out of these and other innovations remains work in progress.

Tuesday, 6 December 2011

Last month the Centre for Well-being at nef (the new economics foundation) launched its latest pamphlet: The Practical Politics of Well-being. At the heart of this pamphlet is the idea that the well-being agenda has the potential to resonate across the political spectrum and appeal to those on the left, right and centre ground of politics in the UK. This is important; we believe that no matter which political party is in power, having high well-being for all as a basic orienting principle for policy making and political decision making can help to deliver improved well-being for UK citizens.

In this vein, The Practical Politics of Well-being presents personal contributions from a Labour (left wing), Liberal Democrat (centre) and Conservative (right wing) perspective on the well-being agenda and how this relates to particular party political principles. In his paper, Michael Jacobs argues that well-being provides a new justification and a new language for goals that Labour already espouses, whilst noting the difficulty of creating public support for the provision of public goods – a necessary pre-cursor for high well-being – and the major challenge that well-being science poses to decisions around economic and employment policy. In her paper, Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson argues that liberals and Liberal Democrats have also long appreciated well-being as an important goal of policy, whilst noting that findings from well-being science may bolster certain liberal principles and pose a challenge to others, which implies a need to consider how well-being sits alongside other key liberal values. In his paper, conservative commentator Jonty Olliff-Cooper notes that whilst Conservative backing of the well-being agenda may at first seem strange, conservatives – whichever strand of conservatism they represent – are interested in how the individual’s well-being can be maximised. He argues that well-being offers one possible route to turning conservative thinking into a practical guide for action.

Acknowledging and harnessing cross-party support for the well-being agenda is an important part of ensuring its practical application. In the UK, moves are now well underway to measure well-being at the national level. Last week the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its first round of test statistics on well-being from its Opinions Survey, and since April 2011 it has included four subjective questions in its annual Integrated Household Survey, which probes the well-being and circumstances of some 200,000 people in the UK. These questions are about how satisfied people are with their lives, how happy they were yesterday, how anxious they were yesterday, and how worthwhile they think the things they do are. The survey also asks a large number of questions about objective circumstances that are influenced by policy, for example health behaviours, housing, education, household income, employment patterns and benefit entitlements. With such information the way is paved for policy makers and political decision makers – of whichever political persuasion – to ask about the likely impacts of particular policies on well-being, and to make policies and decisions in a way designed to maximise well-being. This in turn implies potential changes to policy, some of which might be painful and resisted, whilst others will be less controversial.

Equally as important, however, is our contention – explicit in the pamphlet – that there is a need to change the central dynamic of our society. The current dynamic is inherently flawed. Without doing this, the danger is that despite small, incremental changes to policy and political decision making, the central dynamic will remain unchanged, and that in this the well-being agenda will be no more than a band aid for patching up the cracks in a fundamentally flawed system.

Whilst the well-being agenda appeals to people across the political spectrum, if we are to take it seriously this will mean not only ensuring that policy-making and political decision making at the margins are driven by well-being evidence, but designing core economic policies with well-being in mind.

Friday, 2 December 2011

Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review - a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal.

The 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index released this week found that levels of awareness of corruption have risen significantly for Arab nations involved in the uprisings. One of the leading nations involved in the Arab Spring, Tunisia, fell to 73rd place from 59th last year.

The Office of National Statistics in the UK has released findings of a national consultation established as part of David Cameron’s Happiness Index. The findings show 76% of adults in Great Britain rated their own life satisfaction, with a score of 7 or more out of 10.

The 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness held in Busan this week has been criticised by gender champions from around the world for the lack of inclusion of key gender equality issues in the Forum’s outcomes document. Although a Joint Busan Action Plan on Gender Equality and Development is one of the outcomes of the conference, it is considered to be limited.

Over the past few years the global progress movement has gathered momentum as broader indicators of well-being has become an increasingly popular topic. In Australia, Measures of Australia’s Progress (MAP) is at the forefront of this movement with their work on measuring national well-being and determining whether or not life in Australia is getting better.

That’s all from us this week. We hope you tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page.

Wednesday, 30 November 2011

We’ll start with a close-up of a woman on her knees. She seems to be scrubbing some tiles. We track back and see that in fact she’s scrubbing the tyre tracks off a forecourt. Back a bit more and we see that she and her colleagues are in front of a huge conference centre. It’s covered with banners in Korean and English announcing the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, HLF4. There’s a metaphor there somewhere, and it’s called Busan, the host city and the world’s fifth largest port.

Busan is like a life-sized lesson for participants in this conference. As the Korean president Lee Myung-bak reminded delegates in his speech to the conference, when he was a child, this was one of the poorest countries in the world, and Busan was used to import food to stop people starving after the civil war. In From Poverty to Power, Oxfam’s Duncan Green makes this point too, recalling that 50 years ago Korea’s main export was wigs made from human hair.

Aid played a part in this, and it’s worth looking at why Korea succeed in moving from being a recipient to a member of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, the donor group that oversees Official Development Assistance (ODA).

The first lesson is that ODA has to be stable and reflect a long-term commitment. Korea could count on the US and Japan, and knew from one year to the next what funding to expect. Volatility makes programme management harder, or even impossible. I’ve heard stories from the field of health, education, and other projects that were started, were going well and then had to be stopped because promised funding suddenly dried up. The OECD says that the value of aid is reduced by 15% to 20% when it is unpredictable and volatile.

For the outsider, one of the more opaque terms of the “aid community’s” particularly opaque jargon is “ownership”. What it means is that countries receiving aid take charge of the process. Korea didn’t always agree with its partners, but the results show that it knew best what strategy corresponded to its needs and resources. It wanted non-military aid rather than the guns, tanks and planes it was being offered, and it insisted on focusing on large enterprises rather than the small and medium-sized businesses foreign development experts told it were the key to success. Samsung and Sons would no doubt have been a great little shop for the latest Japanese and American gadgets.

However, to “own” the development process a country needs to develop a whole range of skills and institutions. For instance, if it’s going to export, it needs lawyers who understand international trade rules and port managers who can get the goods onto the ships on time. This is what’s meant by “capacity building”. Countries can’t be expected to acquire all these capacities on their own, but they shouldn’t depend on outsiders either. While over 1500 foreign experts were sent to Korea between 1962 and 1971, over 5 times as many Koreans received training abroad.

Another thing about aid programmes is that the best ones become useless because they’re no longer needed. In the 1950s and 1960s, practically all of Korea’s foreign funding came from grants, but by the mid-70s, grants only represented 11% of funds, the rest being loans. The fact that Korea respected repayment conditions reassured private finance and encouraged foreign direct investment in the country.

Korea also proves that it’s possible to recover from even the most desperate situation. At the end of the 1950s this was a mainly agricultural country still suffering from a war that had killed or injured over 2.5 million civilians. If conference delegates want to see a success story, they just have to look around them. And if they want a reminder that the fruits of economic success aren’t always shared equally, they can look at those women scrubbing the ground they walk on.

Friday, 25 November 2011

Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review - a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal.

Next Friday the Economist will be hosting ‘The World in 2012’, a conference that will discuss the trends, issues and ideas that will shape the year ahead. In the lead up to the conference, @The Economist is asking for ideas via twitter on important themes of 2012.

Bhutan is internationally recognised for their use of Gross National Happiness as the primary measure for national well-being. In his latest artwork Balloons for Bhutan, artist and statistician Jonathan Harris visualizes 599 accounts of happiness in Bhutan in an effort to capture ‘a portrait of happiness in the last Himalayan Kingdom’

The launch of Perspectives on Global Development 2012 has received a lot of media attention this week. This Guardian article highlights the importance of emerging economies such as China, India and South Africa addressing issues of inequality caused by two decades of rapid economic growth.

That’s all from us this week. We hope you tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page.

Thursday, 24 November 2011

A famous Deng Xiaoping quote goes : “Let some people get rich first”. Yet, in Spring 2011, the Beijing city authorities banned all outdoor advertisement of luxury goods on the grounds that they might contribute to a “politically unhealthy environment”.

The trouble with growth is that inequalities tend to rise with it. Growth does not necessarily translate into better life satisfaction – far from it, as the experience of Thailand or Tunisia shows. What happens when the fruits of growth are not shared, when people feel that income inequalities are rising and food prices soaring? Well, that’s when the so-called “politically unhealthy environment” sets in.

Millions voiced their frustration during the Arab Spring. From Tahrir square to the streets of Tunis, a huge emerging middle class showed that it has a tremendous capacity to mobilize people. It demands governments that are open and transparent, as well as more and better services. How can governments answer these demands? How can they go about redistributing the fruits of growth?

A new policy agenda is needed: one that focuses not only on growth but also on openness, fairness and inclusion. Social cohesion needs to be at the centre of policy making. Failing this, we may (re)enter a vicious circle where inequalities create a sense of injustice, which in turn can lead to (mass) protest and sometimes violence. As a result, social peace and stability, as well as long-term growth, may be jeopardized.

How can governments foster social cohesion? Perspectives on Global Development: Social Cohesion in a Shifting Worldfrom the OECD Development Centre, answers this. With this latest report, the Development Centre again proves that it is engaged with the world we live in, whether discussing tax revenues or the merits of football as a factor of social cohesion: having a sense of community can make a difference. That, along with equality of opportunities is what social cohesion is all about.

The report first shows how the world has undergone a shift of historical significance over the past decade, with the centre of economic gravity moving towards the East and South. The figures speak for themselves: in 2000, OECD countries represented around 60% of global GDP but by 2010 this was down to 51%, and it will be only 43% by 2030. In fast-growing economies, per capita growth rate was more than double that of high-income OECD countries over the last decade.

It is precisely this shifting wealth that opens a window of opportunity for development and social cohesion. In fast-growing economies, fiscal revenues rose from 20% of GDP on average in 2000 to 27% in 2008. These countries now have the (fiscal) resources to finance social policies that can make the difference – or, can they?

This report argues that public policies can make a difference. OECD countries with initially high income inequalities manage to redistribute income through taxes and transfers. The challenge is to leave no one behind. A cohesive society reduces inequality between groups and ensures that all citizens – the poor, the middle-earners, and the rich – are socially included.

Over the last decade, hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of poverty. This report argues that the emerging middle class should not be ignored either. Today, nearly 1 billion out of the 2 billion people living on 10 to 100 dollars a day in the world – the global middle class – live in fast-growing countries. This number is projected to exceed 3 billion in 2030.

The emerging middle class is a critical economic and social actor because of its potential as an engine of growth, particularly in the largest developing countries such as China and India. Its contribution to social cohesion can be high, and its expectations are sharply rising. What is needed is a social contract between citizens and the state, which entails more and better services in exchange for paying taxes. This would foster a virtuous circle that boosts social cohesion as well as growth. Citizens are more willing to pay taxes in societies where they feel a sense of belonging. Fiscal policy is thus a good place to start.

As the report highlights, fiscal, social and employment policies should go hand in hand. With recent innovations in social protection, the poorest are covered by social assistance and the wealthy by either contribution-based or private alternatives. Yet, a considerable number of (informal) middle-class workers are stuck in the uncomfortable “missing middle” of coverage. More comprehensive social protection systems should protect all sections of the population.

Stronger labour market institutions are also needed. They should aim to create more “good” jobs and reduce the duality in labour markets – between standard and non-standard contracts or between formal and informal workers. This will be critical in reducing inequalities and fostering social cohesion.

A series of cross-cutting issues have to be addressed coherently as well, including education, gender equality, food policy, the integration of immigrants, and institutions.

As Albert Einstein once said, “Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one”. Ignoring people’s desires and the reality in which they live is perilous. Technocratically good policies that do that just won’t work and giving space to dissenting voices is essential to the creation of a sustainable, socially cohesive society.

Social cohesion is a means for development as well as an end in itself. What if social cohesion were the 21st century’s holy grail? A holy grail that can only be attained with some long-term vision and commitment – and a smile. Failing that, there might be rough times ahead.

Thursday, 17 November 2011

Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review - a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal

On the #occupy movementThe New Progressive Movement (New York Times 12.11.2011)
Development Economist Jeffrey Sachs comments on the Occupy Wall Street movement as a turning point in modern history; according to Sachs the last thirty years or ‘Reaganomics’ have ended with the rise of the new progressive era.
See more on and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on progress in the US

On philanthropyNew directions in philanthropy- report from the Bellagio Summit (From Poverty to Power 15.11.2011)
Duncan Green blogs on the ‘Future of Philanthropy and Development in the Pursuit of Human Wellbeing’ summit hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation this week. Green gives a brief scorecard of what’s hot and what’s not according to philanthropists working in development.

On gender equalityMexican Women Demand Climate Justice (IPS 14.11.2011)
In a recent meeting hosted by Mexicans Against Inequality, issues were raised about the displacement of women throughout Mexico due to ecological disasters such as drought, water scarcity and socioenvironmental conflict.
See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on gender and climate change

That’s all from us this week. We hope you tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page.

Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Just returned from a trip to Budapest. We arrived on what was St. Martin's Day, November 11th. Each year on that day, you must eat goose and drink the new wine to ensure financial growth and well-being for the coming year. St. Martin is indeed the patron saint of well-being.

There are 10 domains for sustainable development in this publication, these being:

Socio-Economic Development

Sustainable production and consumption

Social inclusion

Demographic changes - migration

Public health

Climate change and energy

Sustainable transport

Natural resources

Global partnership

Governance and public life

I encourage you to have a look at this publication as their indicator breakdown is interesting and very specific. I very much like the "global partnership" and "demographic changes" domains. Nice to see that migration is included.

Friday, 11 November 2011

11.11.11 on such a unique date Wikiprogress has prepared a week in review that we plan on revisiting next year on the 12.12.12 to see how far the world has progressed. The week in review is a collection of news items that caught our attention this week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal

Women, War and Peace is a five part television series that looks at the impact the post-Cold War proliferation of small arms has on war and what this means for women who have become the primary targets and suffer unprecedented casualties. The last part of the series aired on Wednesday and is now available to watch online.

The UK Office for National Statistics recently published a list of 10 indicators of well-being. The ONS has embarked upon a three-month consultation that will finalize the list as part of David Cameron’s ‘happiness index’.

From the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement, Joseph Stiglitz looks at the wave of protest movements sweeping across the world and analyses the roles that governance and inequality play and how they are interrelated.

That’s all from us this week. We hope you tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page.